November 21, 2024
Saquon Barkley's backwards hurdle has been added to "Madden NFL 25," the development team at EA Sports revealed this week in the patch notes for the game's latest title update.
“It’s rare, this day and age, to see something that’s never been done before," Madden game designer Isaac “Spade” Etheridge said of the move in a blog post. "That’s when we knew we wanted it in-game."
The turnaround was quick, as the hurdle was added to the game just shy of three weeks after it happened.
During the Eagles' Week 9 home win over the Jaguars on Nov. 3, Barkley took a pass in from the offensive backfield on a first-half 3rd and 6, shed the first tackle from Jacksonville's Tyson Campbell, spun out of the second from Devin Llyod, then, with his back fully turned, leaped up and over the third attempt from Jarrian Jones and back down to his feet for a couple more steps on a 14-yard first-down play.
SAQUON BARKLEY IS NOT OF THIS WORLD.
— NFL (@NFL) November 3, 2024
📺: #JAXvsPHI on CBS/Paramount+
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/UtCENDw6no
The moment stunned the Eagles' sideline, Lincoln Financial Field, and everyone else watching, and got the Madden dev team straight to work.
The blog post explained that the dev team went on to review hours of archived motion capture in a process to grab the best animations that could be chained together, touched up, and edited into the move on the fly – which has been dubbed the "Spin Hurdle" in-game.
Here's how the result turned out:
There are conditions to triggering it, too, EA said.
For starters, Barkley is the only player in the game that can do it and he needs to be carrying the ball. Then a tackler needs to be moving in head-on from a 45-degree angle, and be within a close enough range so that a press of the hurdle button, with the correct timing, can trigger the move and send Barkley up backwards.
"It was insane," Eagles receiver Jahan Dotson said of the hurdle after that 28-23 Eagles win. "Yeah, that was the craziest play I've ever seen. He's amazing."
And now fans can go digitally re-create it.
MORE: Eagles react to Saquon Barkley's backwards hurdle
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